I've been trying and trying to find something good about this wretched change and frankly I can't. None of your pros are enough to make up for the fact that I can only view 5 lines (and that's on the enlarged compose screen) at any one time - makes it jolly annoying to have to keep scrolling up and and down to read what I've typed. I absolutely hate it to the point I'm trying out other email options. I'm quite prepared to give Gmail the flick and I too have been a user since the invitation days.

I've always been using a new window to edit a new message (and referencing other emails): keyboard shortcuts on, Shift-C for New Compose Window. COMPLETELY agree that the new window sucks, especially requiring mouse/trackpad intervention to CC or BCC. I guess we can expect more of this when IM users program email interfaces?

Good points all with the pros, but the con of the CC/BCC being sort of hidden is a HUGE con for me. Instead of being able to hit "tab" and keep typing email addresses in the cc line, I have to grab for my mouse, click cc, then get back to typing. I need to send emails quickly, Google! I need this functionality! Help!

Thanks for the comment, and I did the search thing, too, to see how far back my Gmail usage went. At first it was a secondary email system for me, but now that I am a freelancer, I use it almost exclusively. I do use Outlook on occasion, and I would argue that there are many elements to it that are unintuitive--I think we've all just been trained really well.

Thanks for your comment! I have had problems, as well, with not being able to get a message or message content back if accidentally deleted. And, you're right--you're kind of at Google's mercy in terms of direct complaints, although I am sure they are "hearing" all of the negative talk about the new compose feature. I can see that I am in the minority in terms of liking it, at least based on the comments I have seen.

To me, the change is minor. I've also been a Gmail users since the invite-only days. Maybe this is because I am so used to Facebook making much more dramatic changes that a minor change elsewhere seems to be much more readily acceptable -- as if to say, "At least it wasn't as dramatic as..." But I do agree with the idea that the changes should have been more intuitive, as some comments have already mentioned.

Those are new features? Email clients like Thunderbird can do that since forever...and they can do that even offline! And TB works fine with a gmail address. Why rely on the cloud when there are real client apps?

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.